Join the COPE project at Arctic Frontiers in Tromsø for the side event “Turning science into policy for a sustainable Arctic – How to cope with an Arctic ecosystem under multiple pressures?“
- Time: Monday 9th of May at 09.00-10.30 AM
- Place: Clarion Hotel the Edge, Room “Margarinfabrikken 3”
The Arctic acts as a sink for long-range transported contaminants emitted globally, while also being contaminated from local sources within the Arctic. At the same time the Arctic is warming at three times the rate observed at lower latitudes. This is causing drastic changes in the physical environment, ecosystems and ways of life for people living in the Arctic.
Arctic warming also has significant implications for contaminant sources, pathways and fate. While there are national and international regulatory instruments in place for individual pressures (e.g. contaminants or climate change), there are few, if any, regulatory instruments in place to protect the Arctic against the combined impacts from multiple pressures.
The COPE project’s primary objective is to develop, explore, and evaluate a novel integrated risk assessment framework for assessing combined impacts of multiple pressures on the state of Arctic ecosystems. The focus is upon data-rich pressures (contaminants and climate change) and ecosystems to enable development and a thorough evaluation of the framework.
The Arctic played a central role in the development of the Minamata and Stockholm Conventions. The objective of this side-event is to bring together policy-makers and scientists to discuss how Arctic ecosystems under multiple pressures have a role in international regulatory processes. What is the current status of the Arctic environment, and how is it expected to change? How can we deal with multiple pressures in a regulatory context? And are previously successful approaches to science to policy engagement still appropriate to meet future needs?
Speakers:
- John Walsh, Professor, University of Alaska Fairbanks
- Katrin Vorkamp, Professor, Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
- Trude Borch, Senior Scientist, Akvaplan-niva AS
- Lisa Bjørnsdatter Helgason, Miljødirektør, County Governor of Troms and Finnmark
- Timo Seppälä, Senior Advisor, Finnish Environment Institute
Moderator:
- Eldbjørg S. Heimstad, Research Director High North, NILU – Norwegian Institute for Air Research
Full programme: https://eu.eventscloud.com/website/6764/side-events/
